Dear Wise Women,
Tonight we began a new four week session - welcome everyone! For the next four weeks we will circle as women with the intention to learn, open, heal and grow. Thank-you, each of you, for your courage and honesty tonight. This level of honesty is rare in our society and it gives me great pleasure to create a space where we can gather and simply allow what IS.
The theme of presence seemed to be especially relevant for so many of you, and I hope you are able to carry this awareness into your week and beyond!
Here is the breathing exercise we did in our meditation. I highly recommend doing this meditation for 10 minutes per day. 💕
Inhale: “I”
Exhale: “Am”
Inhale: “Here”
Exhale: “Now”
Inhale: “In”
Exhale: “This”
Consciously Connected Breathing Exercise. Say the above words silently to yourself while breathing in and out. Credit to Michael Brown.
Here are the readings I shared before our meditation:
“Present moment awareness is a state of being as opposed to something we do. The simplest definition of present moment awareness is to be fully aware of the moment we are in - or, to be present in the moment.
The emphasis isn’t on the moment, but on the beingness we bring to bear on our life experience when we pay full attention to the moment.
A reliable indicator we have entered present moment awareness is if our experience, no matter how comfortable or uncomfortable it may feel at any given moment, is infused with gratefulness.
When I speak of gratefulness, I’m not referring to the kind of gratitude that’s been founded on comparison, such as feeling grateful we are in better health or have more wealth than someone else. Neither is it the sort of gratitude that arises because life is unfolding how we want it to and everything is easy. Rather it’s gratitude that requires no reason - gratitude for the invitation, journey and gift of life itself.
Gratefulness is the one single marker we can depend on as an indicator of how present we are in our experience. When we lack gratitude for simply being alive, it’s because we have strayed from the present into an illusory mental state called “time”.
Because we are born into a culture that exists almost entirely within a world of time, few of us are able to be continually present. This is the curse of modern civilization. We thirst for progress, but in many cases progress leads to the structuring of life in such a way that we are no longer required to be present when it is happening. The more automated our experience becomes, the less involved we are in the art of living.
In the world of time, it’s challenging to be grateful because nothing appears to unfold the way we think it should. The past holds regrets and the future the promise of improvement, while the present requires constant adjustment. We therefore spend our waking moments reflecting on what didn’t work in the past and planning those adjustments we believe are necessary to attain the peace and fulfillment we week. Because those adjustments are oriented to a “better tomorrow”, we’ve forgotten how to have a meaningful today. Consequently, the experience we are having right now is viewed as just a means to an end. because we don’t have access to a different experience to which we might compare predicament, living like this appears normal to us.”
“To some people, surrender may have negative connotations, implying defeat, giving up, failing to rise to the challenges of life, becoming lethargic, and so on. True surrender, however, is something entirely different. It does not mean to passively put up with whatever situation you find yourself in and to do nothing about it. Nor does it mean to cease making plans or initiating positive action.
Surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life. The only place where you can experience the flow of life is the Now, so to surrender is to accept the present moment unconditionally and without reservation. It is to relinquish inner resistance to what is. Inner resistance is to say “no” to what is, through mental judgement and emotional negativity. It becomes particularly pronounced when things “go wrong,” which means that there is a gap between the demands or rigid expectations of your mind and what is. That is the pain gap. If you have lived long enough, you will know that things “ go wrong” quite often. It is precisely at those times that surrender needs to be practiced if you want to eliminate pain and sorrow from your life. Acceptance of what is immediately frees you from mind identification and thus reconnects you with Being. Resistance is the mind.
Surrender is a purely inner phenomenon. It does not mean that on the outer level you cannot take action and change the situation. In fact, it is not the overall situation that you need to accept when you surrender, but just the tiny segment called the Now.”
“I love you. I trust you. You are beautiful and you are wise. You beat in harmony with the greater plan of life. You are my guiding light.”
Say this silently to yourself with your hands placed over your heart centre.
Blessings for your week!
Patti